Comments

TrollSlayer

When you dump a TRILLION “stimulus” dollars on an economy, I wonder if that affects prices? (Stimulus Recipient: Hey, free money! Let’s go shopping! Business Owner: Hey, they’re coming with their pockets full of free money! Let’s raise prices!)

Wheeldog

dah, this seems like a "chicken and the egg" argument. Energy, especially oil, costs can and does drive up the price of virtually everything else. As the cost of oil goes up it impacts the price of food, manufactured goods, services, health care, construction, etc., etc. One of the factors in the increasing price of gasoline is related to refining, particularly maintenance and reduced operations. At this point inflation and devaluation of the dollar is not a major player.

Wheeldog

Easy, dah, you are hyperventilating! Relax. It's just a discussion - not the end of the universe. Nonetheless, the on-going high cost of energy is not caused by inflation. There is no evidence of a direct correlation. You seem to have reached a conclusion without clear supporting facts to back it up.

Wheeldog

dah, I am beginning to wonder about you. What are trying to say. Please not my previous post, "Considering that demand has declined and, according to you, supply has increased the normal laws of economics dictate the price should drop accordingly." If that somehow confuses you, it does say that supply is up and demand is down. You need to get a grip.

Wheeldog

dah, you are trying rationalize the continued high cost of oil based fuels by claiming it is all because of the devaluation of the dollar. That doesn't hold water - or oil. The rate of inflation has not gone off the charts, at least not yet. Considering that demand has declined and, according to you, supply has increased the normal laws of economics dictate the price should drop accordingly. However, it hasn't. If it isn't inflation then what is supporting the high prices? One answer is the cost of production or "net" marginal gain. We are spending more each year to barely maintain a plateau of global production. In other words, the net gain is in decline. Price is a form of rationing that squeezes out those at the lower end of the wealth scale. It also reduces overall consumption. If high prices can't substantially stimulate increased net production it indicates we are in a world of hurt.

daWraith

LogHog has nailed one BIG reason SUPPLY is up and prices are still high on OIL: Oil is priced in US DOLLARS and thanks to the fact Obama has borrowed this country into oblivion, the Treasury has to print US Dollars line Monopoly money.

It doesn't buy much OIL like it used to.

NOBODY will LOAN money to the US anymore so the Treasury has to BUY our debt using paper money that eventually won't be worth Crapola.

That the REAL Obama debt reduction plan: PAY IT BACK with dollars that aren't worth squat.

LogHog

Gasoline consumption in the USA is at a 16 yr. low, and yet retail prices keep going up..supply and demand is the problem alright. It's to much funny money being printed. Called inflation by design. QEs are doing what our Govt. wants.

Wheeldog

dah, don't take it personally, but you are babbling. We will never run out of oil and natural gas. No one with any knowledge of energy resources would say we will. The issue is EROI (energy return on investment) or "net" oil gain. In the early 1900s the money represented by one barrel of oil could result in a 100-to-1 return on investment. Currently, we are lucky if we can get 10-to-1 investment return. Even if we can withdraw an increasing amount of oil & gas from the ground we are barely holding our own, because it costs more and more to get the same amount. Keep in mind that the price of oil and gasoline remains high even as more fracking wells are drilled - because the net gain is marginal. We have to run harder just to stay where we are.

Wheeldog

The Rest of the Story: The early hype about shale (tight) gas and oil was that there is enough down there to meet our energy needs for decades - if not centuries. On its face they were/are right - if it can be economically developed and turned into a useable product. What they neglected to say was that the reserves are thin and rapidly deplete requiring ever increasing drilling to keep supply constant. They also failed to mention that the first wells drilled would be in the most productive locations. As time passes the quality and quantity of the remaining shale gas/oil reserves will decline. In the end we are all fracked.

TrollSlayer

WVUGEO, if your coal-to-liquids or your CO2 to fuel ideas were commercially feasible without Government mandates or subsidies, US energy companies would already be doing them now to make more money. Those processes are not secret. So why aren’t US energy companies jumping at the chance to increase their profits by implementing either of those ideas?

If it’s economically feasible, just do it, and become rich. But don’t bribe politicians to enact new regulations that will force your net energy-losing scams down our throats, and use our tax dollars to pay for them, and then call them smart and profitable businesses.

TrollSlayer

WVUGEO, there’s no doubt those processes are possible. The problem is that they, like ALL physical processes, operate at less than 100% efficiency so result in a net LOSS of energy that could have been more cost-effectively put onto the electrical power grid instead of used to inefficiently convert fuel from one form to another, or to foolishly convert waste back into fuel. Sure, the Navy can do it. Is the Navy a non-Government subsidized commercial fuel producer?

WVUGEO

The USDOE's and Navy's CO2 recycling work was founded on even earlier efforts made by the US National Laboratory organization that became a part of the DOE. Look up: "US Patent 3,959,094 - Electrolytic Synthesis of Methanol from CO2; 1976; Assignee: The USA as represented by the USDOE (Brookhaven, NY, National Laboratory); Abstract: A method and system for synthesizing methanol from the CO2 in air using electric power. The CO2 is absorbed by a solution of KOH to form K2CO3 which is electrolyzed to produce methanol, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel".

WVUGEO

The Navy's developments in Carbon Dioxide recycling grew out of earlier work done by the Department of Energy, on a process they called "syntrolysis", and, which is explained to a certain extent in a paper: "Co-Electrolysis of Steam and Carbon Dioxide for Production of Syngas; Fifth International Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology Conference; July, 2007; J.E. O'Brien, C.M. Stoots, et. al.; Idaho National Laboratory, USDOE; and Ceramatec, Inc., Utah". There is a lot of information in the DOE's "Energy Citations Database" concerning it; and, a number of US Patents evolved out of it.

WVUGEO

Troll, the no-baloney sandwich folks in our US military also tell us that CO2 can be recycled into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Look up: "US Patent 8,017,658 - Synthesis of Hydrocarbons via Catalytic Reduction of CO2; Assignee: The USA as represented by the Secretary of the Navy; Abstract: A method of: introducing hydrogen and a feed gas containing ... carbon dioxide into a reactor containing a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst ... to produce hydrocarbons"; and: "US Patent 7,420,004 - Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels; Assignee: The USA, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy; Abstract: A process for producing synthetic hydrocarbons that reacts carbon dioxide, obtained from seawater or air, and hydrogen obtained from water, with a catalyst in a chemical process ... combined with Fischer Tropsch synthesis". Also on the books are designs for fuel production ships to operate the processes and ways and means to harness environmental energy to drive them. It is quit

TrollSlayer

Oh we’re definitely on the verge of being monumentally ripped off, all right. And it’s the next set of secret Government mandated and subsidized Solyndras like WVUGEO’s coal liquefaction and WVUGEO’s perpetual motion machines running on CO2 that will be doing the ripping off, not the gas companies.

WVUGEO

Everyone really needs to be made more aware of what's happening elsewhere in the world. OPEC is making ready to start selling tankers full liquid hydrocarbons made from recycled Carbon Dioxide to us. Make the effort to look up:"United States Patent 8,288,446 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 into Syngas Mixture; 2012; Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)". The "syngas" is a blend of gases that can be catalytically condensed, via the Fischer-Tropsch process that Germany used to make liquid fuels from Coal during WWII, into stuff like Gasoline and Diesel fuel. Our understanding is that a CO2-reycling pilot plant, using yet a different process, is being tried out in Bahrain. We, here, in US Coal Country, being left uneducated and uninformed, are on the verge of being monumentally ripped off.

WVUGEO

Troll: They've been converting Coal to gasoline and diesel in South Africa for more than half a century. It started as a government-subsidized effort to avoid apartheid-era international sanctions, but, SASOL, South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, is now wholly-private and very profitable. China's Shenhua, the largest Coal mining company in the world, says they are making, their words, "huge profits" from Coal liquefaction; and, they have close ties with WVU. Carbon Recycling International, in Iceland, is a completely private company, and, they are profitably selling Methanol made from recycled CO2 through service stations in parts of Europe.

whgfeeling

TrollSlayer

WVUGEO is probably right. It’s clear the shale gas boom is already over. Time to move on to new, more reliable sources of energy. Like the Government-subsidized coal to gasoline scam he’s peddling, or the Government-subsidized CO2 to fuel scam he’s peddling. LOL